Halloween for cosplayers can be surprisingly stressful. We spend most of the year crafting costumes to wear to conventions, so by the time Halloween rolls around, we want something fun, quick and easy. That Iron Man armor looks really good in convention photos, but is pretty impractical at a Halloween party. So we thought we’d do something quick and easy, that can be used with any costume – a Sims plumbob!
A plumb bob is a real-life weighted tool that creates a vertical line when attached to a string. In the Sims game, it’s a colored diamond (usually green) to show a selected character. In some versions of the Sims games, the plumbob can show the mood of the character.
We got all the supplies for less than $20 at our local WalMart. Here’s what you’ll need:
- one sheet of 18″x12″ green craft foam
- green pipe cleaners
- headband/hat (we got both)
- Plumbob pattern (free here!)
- Glue (we like DAP weldwood but hot glue works well too!)
- Scissors/cutting blade
Steps:
- Cut out the pattern on the dotted lines.
- Trace and cut the craft foam, again on the dotted lines. You’ll need two cut (one for the top half and one for the bottom half).
- Using a pencil, trace the solid lines. You don’t want to cut the paper – we’re just making indentations for scoring.
- Fold on the solid lines inwards, so the tabs and base hexagon are pointing inside.
- Using the glue of your choice, glue all the tabs down.
- Repeat for the second diamond, leaving a small space at the point open.
- Take two pipe cleaners, fold it in half and twist.
- Take the folded end and place it inside the point of the diamond we left open. Glue in place.
- Glue the two diamonds together at the hexagon, so the points are facing in opposite directions.
- Take the open end of the pipe cleaner and wrap around the headband or hat. You can glue this in place as well if you’d like.
And that’s it – Halloween costume complete! Check out the video below for our livestream tutorial (filmed live at 10 AM ET on September 30 2021)! Happy crafting!